Manage your subscription

Pride – It sets us apart from the animals—but what about machines, wonders Jeremy Webb

By Jeremy Webb

“DO birds consider whether the nest they have built is better than the one
built in the next tree?” asks Aaron Sloman, professor of artificial intelligence
and cognitive science at the University of Birmingham. “I doubt it.” If his
assessment is correct, it’s a safe bet that you won’t find a bird that feels
pride.

Sloman’s point is that being proud isn’t easy. At the very least you need a
sense of “self” and a way to compare yourself with others. So feeling superior
takes a higher level of mental complexity than most animals can muster. That
doesn’t apply to all emotions. The fear that keeps animals out of the path of a
predator or a speeding car, for instance, is almost universal across species and
needs little or no thought.

But it’s the complex emotions like pride that fascinate Sloman. He believes
that they arise naturally from the information-processing structures that bestow
intelligence on humans, and perhaps on our nearest animal relatives. What’s
more, he has a way to test his theory. Sloman has built a conceptual model of
the mind’s inner workings and is exploring ways to install it in a software
agent, a “nurse” that tends children in a virtual nursery. If his ideas are
correct, his agent should begin to show complex emotions. When placed in a
society of agents, it should even have pride.

Sloman’s model resembles a cake with three layers. The lowest is a “reactive”
layer, which deals with automatic processes, low-level sensory skills such as
seeing and motor skills such as walking(see Diagram). This is the seat …